What Happened to Obama’s Jobs Council?

Oct 18, 2012

RUSH: I’m not through with this jobs business, though. I was just sitting here thinking during the break. Do you remember in the first two years of the regime, Obama had all of these work groups, and one of the work groups he had was a jobs council. In fact, the guy that leads that is Jeff Immelt of GE.

I saw the other day that the Obama jobs council hasn’t met since January.

So basically ten months. But that’s okay because it’s a total waste of time. I’ll never forget. I think it was the first year, maybe, doesn’t matter, but when Obama was doing these workplaces at the White House, they had cameras. The media, you know, was orgasming every day over all of this, and I remember one particular jobs council meeting Thomas Friedman of the New York Times was there, who is their foreign policy columnist at the New York Times.

I’m watching with incredulity the Obama jobs council, and it was a metaphor for exactly what’s wrong with socialism, liberalism, Marxism, Central Planning. Here you had a bunch of eggheads who don’t know the first thing about job creation, by definition. Obviously. If they’re sitting there talking about it, they don’t know anything about it! If they think their gathering together in a room to talk about job creation is the solution, they don’t know what they’re talking about.

That’s not how jobs happens.

That’s now how an economy happens.

It was even more laughable that you have all these egghead theoreticians, faculty lounge lizard types, all these liberals who sit around and talk to each other about how much better everything would be if they ran it. They have all these eggheads sitting around at the White House theorizing, all these liberals theorizing. If they were in charge, if they were the ones calling the shots, if they were the ones planning everything, then there wouldn’t be any economic problems.

There wouldn’t be high unemployment. They really believed that the last ten years of George W. Bush destroyed the economy. Nothing could be further from the truth, but it was insulting to my intelligence and laughable at the same time to see people like Thomas Friedman — a journalist, a columnist at the New York Times and whoever else was there — sitting around at a two-hour workshop on job creation.

Meanwhile, while these clowns are in the White House theorizing and talking about job creation, people all across the country are sweating and slaving. Small business owners are trying to hold onto their businesses as they face even higher taxes and more onerous regulations coming right out of the White House where all of these silly, ridiculous workshops are taking place.

By people that haven’t the slightest idea what they’re talking about, who wouldn’t know how to start a business and keep it going. They wouldn’t put up with the regulations that they foster on everybody else. It’s just mind-boggling, the arrogance. Barack Obama doesn’t have a week’s worth of experience in the private sector. He doesn’t have any experience in health care.

No experience in medicine.

No experience in pharmaceuticals.

No experience in jobs.

Yet he knows all! He’s got all the answers. Let him run everything! It’s one of the things that constantly burns me. They bring in the yokels like Thomas “Loopy” Friedman to sit here and all you have was a bunch of people feeling self-important. They’re the smartest people in the room. They know all. What plans could they possibly conceive? Jobs do not get created by commissions in the White House or anywhere else.

Jobs are created by real people you’ve never heard of rolling up their sleeves, taking giant risks, borrowing money, and putting that money at risk on a passion for a product or a service that they think will score big, that they think is going to be popular. And if it grows, they hire more people to handle the growth of the business. Not one of these people on one of these job commissions ever been a boss.

Not one of them has ever started a business.

Not one of them.

There weren’t any CEOs at this workshop. I mean, this was strictly eggheads. We talk about Apple. You know, look at all of these cell phone companies now who are working hard to build out 4G data networks, LTE. Why is that happening? If it weren’t for the iPhone, the build-out of LTE networks by cellular companies would be going at a snail’s pace. But the sale of all these iPhones is creating a demand for high-speed data networks that is creating all of this investment by the cellular companies that’s resulting in the growth.

There’s not one aspect of this taking place that any commission or group of eggheads in Washington conceived, planned, and ordered. The iPhone did not come from any brilliant Obama guy or commission, nor did anything else that Apple makes. The only thing these people do is regulate, often in an injurious way, what others are taking risks on invest in and to accomplish.

The FCC is a regulatory agency that can make or break private sector industry or firm with one decision, and it’s political. It always has been. The president gets to name the majority members. AT&T wanted to merge with T Mobile, and the reason they wanted to do that is because Verizon was kicking their butt on the LTE rollout. AT&T couldn’t build as fast as they could buy spectrum to roll out LTE.

Well, the FCC disapproved the merger because they didn’t like the Bells being put back together after we’d torn ’em apart decades ago. Of course the stupid idiots in the media applaud this. (clapping) “This is wonderful! Big business getting shafted, big business being told it can’t make obscene profits.” So in the meantime, AT&T is in 55 markets with LTE and Verizon’s in over 250.

AT&T would be competitive with Verizon on LTE if the merger had been approved. I’m not arguing for or against the merger. I’m just pointing out that about none of this does Obama have a clue about. He doesn’t have the slightest idea. Neither does Thomas “Loopy” Friedman. All they can do is sit there and whine and moan that the iPhone’s made in China. They haven’t the slightest idea how much of the American economy revolves around the purchase of those damn things, and every other gadget.

Not just Apple’s. Now, manufacturing’s important, but those jobs were never here. My only point is we’re living the moment that we’ve all predicted. We’re living the moment that I predicted in 1992 in the Clinton-Bush campaign. “Folks, if these guys win, we’re further down the line to big government socialism. Government’s gonna get bigger; the private sector’s gonna shrink.”

We’re no longer predicting.

It’s happened.

We are living it.

These welfare numbers today prove it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Jean in Harvard, Illinois. Welcome to the EIB Network and the Rush Limbaugh program. Great to have you here.

RUSH: Right on! Right on! Thank you very much for the call. (laughing) “[W]ouldn’t-let-Planned Parenthood-touch-my-boobs-even-if-they-did-do-mammograms dittos.” (laughing) I love that.

CALLER: They don’t. But the reason I’m calling has to do with Obama’s magical thinking. You talked a little bit about it in the monologue. You talked about how he had a jobs conference and then said it was solved. This has to do with the debates. Someone asked a question about what he was going to do about gas prices, and what he said was he’d passed the mandate to increase the CAFE standards. That’s like passing a mandate to lower the sea levels. You don’t just pass it and it’s done.

RUSH: Yeah, I know. This is a great point, actually, about not just Obama, but about all of these distant, removed-from-reality, central-planner types. They really do believe it. I’m sure that Obama thought, “We passed the stimulus,” and that’s all he had to do. Magic would happen! Remember we got stories six months later, nine months later and a year later that said Obama was shocked.

He was surprised it hadn’t worked. But you’re exactly right. The jobs council will meet for two hours, they’ll come up with some proposes, and it’s done. And you move on to the next thing. And then, no matter what happens, you say you did it. You dealt with it, “and as much as can be done has been done, and just give me some more time.” You’re exactly right.

CALLER: Yeah, there’s just science involved. You know, I drive a 15 passenger van. I could increase my mileage by trading it in for a Smart Car or so-called Smart Car. I’m not gonna do that.

RUSH: No, no, no. No, no, no, no. You’ve forgotten! The number one thing from Barack Obama himself, the number one thing is to make sure the tire pressure in your van is full.

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: You need to get one of those tire-pressure gauges. He did, folks! He said one of the best things you could do to improve your mileage was to make sure you had the right pressure in your tires. Everybody should have a gauge.

CALLER: Right. (laughing)

RUSH: Anyway, your observation’s right on the money. I appreciate it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Denise in Pocatello, Idaho. How are you?

CALLER: Hey, Rush, how are you today?

RUSH: Well, I’m a little disappointed. I just lit a cigar it’s not drawing very well. I think there’s no smoke in it.

CALLER: Well, I’ll talk for a while so you can take a nice long draw if that’s a help.

RUSH: Well, no, there’s no draw. I’m sitting there sucking nothing. Kind of like being at Planned Parenthood.

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: Anyway, what’s your question?

CALLER: I’ve listened to you since the nineties. First-time caller. What I’m calling about today is that we used to be that middle class family. You know, we used to be able to go out there and spend a little money on the economy and do a little shopping, and now… You know, I was a realtor for ten years, and nobody talks about all the realtors that lost their jobs in the real estate field —

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: — and what they had to do to go out there and find employment. I ended up having to take a minimum-wage job and work that for two years ’cause you do what you have to do for your family.

RUSH: Well, now, some people look at it that way. You do; some don’t.

CALLER: Well, I worked private sector my whole life. So I thought that I was fortunate because I had gotten a government job and —

RUSH: Have you always been in Idaho?

CALLER: No, I’m originally from Montana.

RUSH: Where did the real estate business turn bad for you? Where were you then?

CALLER: It was in Montana.

RUSH: In Montana.

CALLER: Yeah, I was trying to stay ahead of the market and so we moved to Idaho because it hadn’t hit here as much as it had hit Montana.

RUSH: A lot of people from California relocate to Idaho.

CALLER: Yeah, they do. Well, I managed to make it for two years, but after that, you can’t afford all the dues. The local dues, the state dues, the national dues, the office fees. You just can’t afford it.

RUSH: See that’s another thing. You’re exactly right. When you hear about housing starts and new housing construction, you never think about the ancillary impact on the people who sell them, the people who build them — and the people that buy them as well. Well, I’m glad you called. I appreciate your time. Thanks very much, Denise.